Three hundred and sixty five
by blessedarethecracked
Summary: Akigure - Shigure's POV. On the anniversary of both the death of Akito and the birth of his daughter, Shigure dances. Does time really heal or just leave your memories even further out of reach?


**Some more akigure angst for ya - don't ask me why I always kill off Akito, I prefer it when she's alive, honest XD. I might write something less... lets go slit our wrists - about them at somepoint.. until then if you want to review that would be fine with me 'hint' .**

One year. One long, hazily distorted year, both lengthened and shortened by wild, reckless grief. Time seemed stolen; spirited away from us to leave me robbed of senses so that days passed unnoticed with prayers and tears, then suddenly stretched to the point of being unbearable with disorientation in my own mind as the baffled, definite, yet unaccepted blanket of loss smothered everything about my life.

Not everything.

One thing had been sent to keep me from following her into the next world, one thing that made all other feelings I held helplessly in my hands infected with a kind of exquisite bitter sweet joy. And now, as I held my tiny daughter on the balcony of our house which was filled with a crushingly loud silence that accentuated every footfall on the floor that was not hers, and every sigh of passion that was not ours, that bitter sweet joy seemed to pique and bleed out of me in relentless tears which could not be explained. I wept for the loss of my wife and for the gift of my daughter; both of which that had been delivered to me in one sudden, rushed day of sweat and hysteria. My tiny, fragile daughter who had been frantically torn two months early from my wife who lay in my arms, silent for the both of us as my screams wracked our bodies. Inexplicably - miraculously- she had survived the first two most precarious months and from there she and I took each day, cautiously expecting nothing, tentatively wanting everything. My grief for Akito was thrown into icy uncertainty as I raised our child one unstable day at a time, my joy at her survival often bringing me into waves of grief, as the guilt that I could feel such joy at the death of my wife gnawed into me. And now one year. Since her birth, since Akito's death - somehow we had survived it, my beautiful child and I both unable and unwilling to live without each other. She stabilised my unquenchable grief and I protected her the way I never could protect my wife, ensuring that from the terrible, wonderful moment she was born that she would always be loved the way Akito never had been . And nothing could be more loved.

Her head rested on my chest as I held her gently on the dawn of her first birthday. The sun's persistent first rays graced us with springs insistent warmth that last year had been so numbing, and I felt her tiny, beautifully strong heartbeat next to mine, whispering to me of the next year to come which would be kinder, filled with less angry sorrow. The harsh crimson streaks bleeding across the morning sky jolted back images of blood streaked piss, infection, death, sudden grief, sudden joy, loss, life, the end of everything and the beginning of everything. That was what today would be. As the sun would set, our lives would truly begin, the memories of this confused tumble of days that had been the first year being allowed to rest, and for us to return to credible living. The sun rose before us, leaping into the cracks of the night and setting them ablaze with glowing, glittering hope. We watched it swell and fill the garden, listening to the mad ballet of the stirring house begin, dragging us along with its ceaseless rhythms and melodies whether we wished to be part of it or not. Her heart had been the first beat that started this new dance - I thought I could never be part of another after Akito's had so abruptly ended, but in the same way I had loved Akito, it crept upon me unexpectedly so I was captivated before I even had chance to question my part in it at all.

Drowsy in sleep, she shifted slightly against me and I enveloped her palm in my own, swaying gently as we danced in mourning, and in sorrow, and in joy.


End file.
